July 27: Earth & Beyond Founders' Federation Announced

Some good news for beta testers and those who pre-purchase Earth & Beyond hs been announced by developer Westwood Studios. Here's the scoop:

WESTWOOD STUDIOS ANNOUNCES EARTH & BEYOND FOUNDERS' FEDERATION Beta testers will be able to keep their characters in the final game

LAS VEGAS, NV (July 26, 2002) - Westwood Studios announced today the Founders' Federation for Earth & Beyond, a program created exclusively for beta testers to reward them for helping to shape the game's galaxy. Earth & Beyond is an online role-playing galaxy that will be published by EA (NASDAQ:ERTS) under the EA GAMES brand this fall.

Any beta tester who purchases the retail version of the game will be automatically invited into the Founders' Federation. This program will offer members several benefits, the greatest one being that they will be able to keep the characters they've created in the beta test, and carry them over to their account when they purchase the retail version of the game. Members of the Founders' Federation will also receive a special decal for their in-game starships to signify that they were among the fist players in the galaxy.

"This is the first program of its kind to be offered to testers of massively-multiplayer games," said Erick Hachenburg, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA.com. "We're rewarding members of the Earth & Beyond Founders' Federation for the hard work they've put into the beta test, by allowing them to keep their characters. If Earth & Beyond beta testers like this program, we may introduce similar opportunities in our other games at EA.com."

Westwood will delete all player characters in the beta test one final time approximately two weeks before the game ships to stores. Any characters that members of the Founders' Federation create after that (up to five per member), will be carried over to their account when they install the retail version of the game.

Westwood currently is conducting a beta test of Earth & Beyond with thousands of players playing every day. Thousands of additional testers will be selected in July and August, and anyone wishing to participate in the beta test can sign up online at www.earthandbeyond.com. All testers selected, along with current testers, who purchase the retail version of the game will be included in the Founders' Federation.

Gamers who pre-purchase the retail version of Earth & Beyond at Electronics Boutique, www.ebgames.com, GameStop, or www.gamestop.com, will be automatically included in the Earth & Beyond beta test without having to sign up at the official Earth & Beyond website, and will also be included in the Founders' Federation.

In Earth & Beyond, players become the captain of their own starship and live star-spanning adventures as they explore, trade and fight with thousands of others. Testers will be part of the creation process and will see the universe take shape around them as the developers add more sectors, planets, missions, quests, monsters, characters, features, evolving plot lines and more.

Earth & Beyond is currently in a massive beta phase, aiming to launch in just a few months. -ChrisLTD